My Neighbors Are Weird: Halloween Edition
by DemonicPiano
Summary: In the spirit of Halloween, Alfred pranks his brother by chasing him around the neighborhood with a chainsaw. Unless it isn't a prank? Anyway, the whole block is full of weirdoes and Matthew didn't get the memo as he is chased outside late into the night.


_Author's Note - Something I had in my brainspace for a couple years now, I decided to finally write this. Happy Halloween._

* * *

Matthew crossed off another day from his calendar. It was getting closer to Halloween. Cut-outs of ghosts, zombies and vampires hung in the windows, cobwebs made spiders jealous by being strewn over the doorway (the fake webs were allowed but theirs weren't?) and of course, the most important thing - he had the copious amounts of candy ready, maybe not for trick-or-treaters, but it sure wasn't going to go waste.

Inevitably, it was getting closer to the moment of his brother's ultimate prank. Every damn Halloween - no, every _holiday _\- was an opportunity to make Matthew jump out of his skin and lose the privilege to look his brother in the eye. Would it be fake spiders in the cereal box again? Or something new and refreshing like-

Matthew turned from his calendar, only to ram his poor toe into a nearby end table. "Oh, you son of a..." Rubbing his offended foot, he narrowed his eyes at their living room. Something wasn't right. Alfred had to be responsible. He just had to; he always was.

A few days ago, Matthew came back from the restroom, and oh, all of a sudden, his dear and beloved Alfred had to duck out, rambling about missing a great sale on avocados, snickering his way out the door and cackling into the night. That left Matthew to host a cursory sweep around their house in case something was missing or something else would jump out.

Alfred moved the furniture over by a few centimeters. Subtle, but effective. Just ask his mangled toe! Matthew considered praising his brother face-to-face for the clever prank, but that would only work to encourage him and bring on more foot-pains and headaches. Maybe if he let everything alone, Alfred would come back home and fall into his own trap, too. Justice would be had.

Matthew flopped on the couch with a hefty sigh, and gave his abused foot some TLC, but someone knocked on the front door. A shadow ducked past the window. He rolled his eyes before pulling himself to his feet. He opened the door, only to stare into an empty street.

"Oh, wow," Matthew loudly remarked, "it looks like I've been tricked!"

He may have closed the door a bit too roughly, and went back to the couch. It was quiet, just before the TV would turn on, but when Matthew reached for the remote, ear-grating noise erupted into the living room, right behind his head.

"_Shit!"_ Matthew leaped away from the couch and the remote, but neither were the culprit; a man stood in his house, ordained in a hideous _orange _jacket, which was caked in what probably was the blood of his previous victims, courtesy of the chainsaw purring in his gloved hands, the chainsaw leering for Matthew's face. His intruder's visage was obscured by a typical serial killer mask.

In a fit, Matthew yanked a table lamp from its socket and threw it right for his face. A solid hit, and the chainsaw went up.

"Ow, what the fuck!" The intruder shouted over the motor, limbs flailing. Matthew may have let out a teeny squeak for the danger of his furniture. Oh, and his own life, too. "Dang it, Matthew! That was my nose! I know I got this mask and all, but that still hurt!"

"Alfred?!" He should have known. "You idiot! What are you doing with...with that _thing_?! You could take a limb off! God, your pranks are getting out of hand-"

Alfred aimed his weapon in Matthew's direction as he adjusted his mask. "No, I'm not kidding around!" Then an ugly roar, "_I'm going to kill you!_"

Not having the luxury of time to tell him off, Matthew screamed, flapping his hands for a stupid moment before survival instincts kicked in and he dashed for the door while Alfred dashed to decapitate.

The sounds of the chainsaw snarling for his blood and Alfred cackling in delight at the thought followed Matthew down the street, occasionally nicking something with a splinter and gurgle of gas. Down the block, with only socked feet against concrete, Matthew ran. Did he look nuts, pelting through the night in his pajamas? Sure, but that was nothing next to a now-murderous sibling.

The crazy laughter seemed to be getting more and more distant.

Matthew swerved onto random roads, chittering in fright and worry. Was it something he said? Or maybe because he slammed his bedroom door in Alfred's face last Saturday because his dearly beloved brother woke him up at _seven _in the goddamn morning to make some strawberry pancakes. It may have been a little dramatic, but Alfred always seemed to know what buttons to press.

But attempted murder? Usually the guy acted innocent.

Matthew yipped at his own shadow in the streetlights before his feet stumbled to a stop. He tossed another panicked peek over his shoulder, trying to get something in his lungs. Playing it safe, he darted into the shadows of a nearby shed from someone's back yard. Yes, Matthew would totally survive a horror movie.

Looks like he was already living in one.

With his back pressed to old stone, Matthew set a palm over his heart running for his life. He let out a weak laugh, panting and scoffing, "Al, you asshole." It was another Halloween prank. It had to be. Although Alfred's acting was really on point. A little _too _on point.

Something swished in the grass. Matthew sucked in a last breath before pressing against the wall. No way Alfred found him already. The footsteps were subtle - too quiet for his noisy clamoring. Besides, the sounds of the chainsaw were only haunting Matthew's memory...for now. A little cheep came out of his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut.

If he couldn't see them, maybe they couldn't see him?

That something was too close. Matthew squeezed his eyes shut even harder, not needing to see to just _know _something was right there, probably staring at him being a dumbass. A cool fingertip pressed into his nose, and Matthew glimpsed down.

Alfred would often come home with flowers, mostly roses, and dirty fingernails. Yup, he stole them. Yup, right from Arthur's garden. Said man lived just down the street, only coming outside to tug at non-existent weeds and yell at anybody that dared to walk on the public sidewalk, too close to his roses, or yell at them for _looking _at the roses, or yell at Alfred picking said roses, or yell at the clouds...whatever old, lonely folks do these days, but he managed a tight-lipped smile for Matthew.

"Evening, lad," Arthur started. "Is there a reason you're cowering in the night like this?"

Matthew almost blurted and asked why the guy was wearing a hideously old and tattered suit and _waistcoat. _Come on, everyone knows he's old-fashioned and grumpy, but a casual strut around the dark in _pinstripes _was taking it too far. Usually it was just tacky sweater vests. He blinked and shivered instead of saying anything.

"You all right?"

"I think so," Matthew managed. Breathe, he told himself. It was easy. Apparently. "I was...um...just...out for a jog?"

Arthur almost smirked. Yeah, that was lame. "Is that so? Bit late to be running around, don't you think?"

"I could say the same thing."

Arthur just shook his head and tutted. "You're not doing anything, and that's just fine. Won't you be a dear and stay for some tea? Or something? I just made a pot and I think it's too much for me and me alone. I _certainly _wouldn't mind the company..."

Or something...?

And were those _fangs_?

"Um, what?" Matthew grunted like an idiot. Before Arthur said anything with that breath, he managed, "N-no? I mean, that's all right, I should really get back home. Like you said!" Uneasy laughter, "It's getting late!"

A step forward. Matthew automatically shirked away despite having a few good inches and how many pounds over the guy. "There's no need to get so worked up." Really, there were two long canines just hanging in the front of his mouth. "At least let me walk you back home. It's dangerous to be out here alone at this time."

Ha, in this supposed typical, white-suburban-soccer-mom neighborhood? Matthew blurted, dumbfounded and disturbed at the same time at a bat of green-green eyes, "Wouldn't you be outside all alone, then?"

"You're right," Arthur breathed, eyes wide against the night and never waning from Matthew's neck. "We are alone."

"Uh-huh, yeah," Matthew pushed from his super-protective wall. "I'm going to go."

"Please don't." A pale hand reached to squeeze Matthew's bicep. "Not so soon."

Matthew gently tugged away. "Nope. I'm leaving."

Arthur unleashed a weird hiss and popped open his mouth as he lunged forward. Matthew planted a palm on his chest, grunting as those fangs gnashed for his throat, and shoved the old fart as far as he could. Arthur tumbled into the grass, ass-up.

"Oh, hell no," Matthew said. "This town is freaking weird!"

"Get back here!" Arthur jerked to sit up, and yowled to the rooftops, "I'm sure you could spare a drop or two of blood! Greedy little nit!"

Matthew whipped around to get away, only to collide into another body. An annoyed and maybe-frightened holler came out of his face. First his chainsaw-wielding maniac brother, then a creepy wanna-be vampire, now-

A stubbly face did its best to look concerned, "Oh, are you all right?"

Matthew jerked away from both of the old geezers, glaring back and forth between Arthur's felled figure scowling in the grass, to Francis, his neighbor and fiercest garden competitor. Francis looked like white bed sheets that were torn apart by rabid claws in a human(?) form, and clutched an...oil lantern in this modern day and age.

Arthur threw up a hand to squint and hiss again, "Back off, frog! This is none of your business!"

"I think it is, when you are trying to hurt a beautiful man like so! I cannot bare to stand by and watch him meet his end so horribly to a disgraceful creature like you as I have!"

Matthew put in, "Um, what?"

Francis turned to him, eyes slowly rolling back into his head, "Don't worry, _dear_, I'll banish this foul tempered leech!"

"Ugh, you!" Arthur snarled and lunged for Francis, fangs out, but his nemesis practically floated to one side and rammed his lantern into the fiend's face. Arthur's hands flailed and clamped onto the offended area. Francis shook his head in distaste. "Oh! Ow! Oh, bloody..._fuck!_"

As interesting it would be to see two old geezers go at it under different circumstances, Matthew took the opportunity to be somewhere else. Somewhere with much more distance away from weirdoes, preferably.

"W-wait!"

Nope, he was not waiting.

"Damn it, Francis!" Arthur insinuated, clutching a forming bump, "You didn't have to actually whack me!"

"Oh. Oh, well, I'm sure you deserve it anyhow."

"_You_-!"

Matthew sprinted through the night, down the sleeping streets, already sick of these zany fogies and chainsaws and this weird little town - seriously, why did none of these back roads have any lighting?! He made a sharp turn through someone's yard, darting for the distant street lights alone the main road. A few turns and a block later, he could try his house again, and hopefully his brother would have let up by then.

The distant roar of a chainsaw ripping through the air said otherwise. Matthew swerved away accordingly.

He almost missed a rumbling growl peaking into a feral snarl and a _whoosh_ went by his ear. He flinched as someone (or something, at his point) almost clipped his face.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I was just trying to get to the main road-"

A little old Asian man cocked his head in an unnatural manner. He pulled his lips back, making claws, and apparently he was feral, too, just like Arthur, Francis, and Alfred. "Brains! No! I'll take anything!"

"Ugh!" Matthew leaped away, not wanting to tackle an old guy to the ground again. "I don't have time for this! Excuse me!"

"What?! No time for brain-eating?!"

_"No!"_

With that, Matthew took off on longer legs while a zombified Yao Wang shambled dramatically in his direction. "Heh," he appraised his own waddling, "I hope I'm doing this right."

Matthew almost tripped off the sidewalk to fall face-first into the road. It seemed fitting for this night, based on the way things were going. He pulled in a long sigh, just to get his heart rate somewhat normal. Then he remembered little old man Yao, despite insisting that Alfred's pestering annoyed him from China and back, would pile all kinds of dumplings and treats onto the twins whenever he even heard a stomach rumble, but now he was cursed to be undead?

Matthew put his hands on his knees, pitying himself for a moment while Yao was a while back, "I don't know who belongs in a mental ward more - any of those guys, or me after all of this!"

"Well, hello there!"

He threw his hands up and yelled toward the night sky before glaring in the direction of whoever's turn it was to bother him. A big guy (_like, really big_) guy with...bear ears (yes, bear ears, right on top of his head) smiled cheekily and dipped his chin into the scarf tied into a bow around his neck. Ivan. Matthew had no idea what he did for a living, but everyone loved to gossip and theorize. Some say he built a death ray and tried to get his younger sister to stand in front of it. Others claim he climbs onto his roof to meow like a cat, but only on Thursday nights. "You-"

"Agh!" Matthew cut off whatever he was saying. Normally, he wouldn't be so rude, but hey, maybe he was going crazy. Perhaps it was inevitable in this neighborhood. All according to fate and plan! Ivan clamped his mouth shut and furrowed his eyebrows. The disturbing has become the disturbed. Good. "Stay over there. Don't even start! Just..." The crudeness spilled out, "Go away!" Yep, see, that was crude.

"Oh? Not even a hello back?"

"No! I'm sick of these...monster people! I just want to go home, watch some Family Feud, then go to sleep!"

"You don't want to play with us?"

"No!"

With that, Matthew glanced around before launching himself up a nearby tree.

His company wandered toward his perch and craned his head back, blinking against the streetlights and pulling smiles, "You know bears can climb, too, yes?"

"Do it, and I'm going to start throwing walnuts at your head."

"This is not even a walnut tree, Mister Alf...oop! I mean, Mister Matthew!"

"What's going on over here?" _Another_ voice came close. The unmistakable antique top hat and tacky overcoat was Arthur again. Matthew groaned at the sight, but remembered the bruise on top of Arthur's head. "What's all that racket about?"

Ivan pointed up the tree, "I found our friend!"

Arthur craned his head back, squinting, "Matthew, is that you? Come down from there before you hurt yourself!"

"Like you would?!"

An indignant scoff, "Don't tell me you're such a hog as your brother! Take pity on someone with a hemo-deficiency!"

Ivan giggled, probably just for the drama.

Yao then made his reappearance, shuffling out of someone's backyard to join the fray, "Rawr! I come for some brains, but I'm not seeing any here!"

Francis came around from the other side, shaking his head, "Now look at what you gotten yourselves into."

"Go away!" Matthew called. "Please?"

"Come play with us!"

"Yeah! Play!"

A motor ripped through the squabbles, and all heads turned to Alfred's form stepping into the fray, chain up and fist yanking the cord back to make it snarl for Matthew's blood.

"Come down from there, Mattie."

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Get down, dude!"

"Fuck you!"

"I'm going to cut the tree down!"

"No, you're not!"

Alfred ripped the cord to his chainsaw again, making it roar in fury and bloodlust. Matthew scrunched himself against his crook from the thought of the tree falling, then having to deal with the crowd...

Again, "I'm going to cut this tree down!"

Matthew cupped his palms to his ears, but that did nothing against the fervor of vibrations running up the bark and sinking goosebumps into his skin. "Okay, okay! Stop! Don't cut the tree down! You'll kill it!"

Alfred threw his head back and cackled, prompting the others to rise up in their own murmurs of amusement. "Seriously?! You'd be fine dying if the tree stays?"

"Sh-shut up!"

"Come on!" A brandish of the still-rumbling chainsaw. If only it would run out of gas...

"You'll cut me down either way!"

"All right!" Alfred ripped the cord back a few more times, scattering the crowd as he lunged for the innocent tree. "I'm doing it!"

The chain met wood, erupting in an awful clacking noise. Matthew flinched and tossed his head around. Nothing was close enough for him to attempt to launch out of the tree, grab and swing to safety, or at least a few more minutes of running. That is, if he _could _even jump-kick-fly from his stich and not plunge to broken bones.

"Okay! Okay, stop it! Stop!"

Alfred let go, looking up expectantly.

"Fine! I'm...I'm coming down!"

That prompted a few happy murmurs from the group, and a smarmy grin from Alfred as he took a step back and held out a hand. Matthew wanted to slap a palm over his face and smother it in. Or something.

_Or something._

Matthew's tender soles hit concrete, and he resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and let doom come over him. Instead, he poured his greatest scowl onto his brother. "This better be a prank, Alfred-"

Alfred threw his arms around him, chainsaw and all. Matthew screeched as it rumbled against his backside, but it sure didn't feel like it was tearing through anything. Not that Matthew personally knew how that felt. It actually tickled.

Oh, rubber chains. Damn it all.

"Happy Halloween, Mattie!"

Matthew yanked away only to get a face full of cloth against as everyone converged for a group hug. Butt grabs included. "It was! It was a prank! You bastard! Ugh! I can't believe you! All of you! You got the whole block in on it!"

"Ha-ha! Yep!"

"It's trick or treat!" Ivan said.

"Yes!" Yao agreed, "But I'm more about the treats!"

The chainsaw still purred as Alfred laughed, "I'm all for that!"

"I'm going to get you back, Al, I swear," Matthew promised.

Alfred stuck the chain into a soft spot in his side, causing the group to disperse as Matthew howled in fright. "Gotcha again! You make it too easy! Man, it's a good thing I'm not actually a psychopath, chainsaw-massacre murderer! Isn't that right, guys?!"

Cue uneasy mutterings, "Right..."

"I might have to sit that one out!" Francis clutched his back. "All that running around...I'm aching!"

Arthur sourly pointed out, "You're always aching, frog."

"Yes, that's from looking at you."

"What?! That doesn't even make sense!"

"Come on, dudes!" Alfred heaved his weapon in the air, apparently not having enough of it, and waved it around again to make people's heads duck, "Did you hear? Yao's got a whole bunch of snacks for us to eat!"

"What?! I said no such thing!"

Matthew had no idea where Alfred even got the damn chainsaw in the first place.

Happy Halloween to him, he guessed.

* * *

_A.N. -_ _I had some ideas pertaining to this setting, this neighborhood where the characters got on each other's nerves in a day-to-day life. Maybe I'll call it...my Neighborhood AU. Ha! Creativity, I tell you!_


End file.
